Love, the Self, and the Divine

My friend and fellow writer and teacher Jessa Sexton once very flatteringly quoted me in a book. At some point, I told her that "you cannot love others until you learn to love yourself," or something like that. What I think I meant was that you cannot value others until you are able to value yourself, something that makes sense. As soon as Jessa told me that she wanted to quote me, I was embarrassed by this quote. Obviously, Jessa is my friend and I allowed her to quote me (I was pleased to have ever said anything that anyone found inspirational, especially someone as intelligent as my friend), but not without a little shame--mostly because the quote feels a bit cliched to me. But as I look at the quote now, I realize something else that I dislike about it. It assumes, I think, a kind of emotional state in which my ability to love others is dependent on my ability to feel good about myself. It's a matter of self esteem, a concept I've since come to see as dubious, fleeting, and perhaps even irrelevant.

At 32 years old, having been married now for ten years to a fantastic wife with whom I have had two sons, my thinking about love and what it is have changed dramatically. Love is, and this is every bit as cliched as my quote in Jessa's book, much more active than my original quote assumed. It is not a feeling one has, though feeling is certainly a part of it. Love is a stuff one does. It is service and sacrifice. It is treating others as if they have been made in God's image, an understanding of the value of individuals.

With that in mind, I'd like to revise my thinking in my old quote. In fact, I'd like to reverse it: I could not love myself until I learned to love others.

You see, despite my seemingly arrogant bravado, I am a very self-conscious person. I often doubt my intelligence, question my talent, and fail to see my own worth. Often, it seems to me that there's just not much to love about myself. But, rather in opposition to my old quote, it is when I love others that I begin to understand my place and consequently my own worth as a child of God.

My faith has taught me that God is, above any other aspect of his complex personality, defined by love. It is therefore no surprise that his most important commandment to the people he has declared to be created in his image is to love. My capacity to love, as God has loved, is one of the most important ways in which I am created in the image of God.

Therefore, it is when I love others--through service, through kindness, through grace, through sharing a meal or a kind word--that I most able to see God in me. And when I realize that God lives within me, that I am in essence a container for the divine, I am able to see and accept my own value. When I see others through God's eyes, I see myself through them as well.

Thus, in my love for others, I develop a purpose and a sense of self--and a love for what I am and what I am called to do.